Sea of Glass

The weight of overpopulation forces massive changes in the near future of Longyear's Malthusian nightmare. Childbearing becomes a strictly regimented privilege, and those who violate the law are subject to drastic punishment. As one of these illegal children, seven-year-old Thomas Windom is placed in a heavily guarded labor camp. There he learns to accept brutality and murder as a direct expression of his society long before legal reforms offer him a conventional education. Fascinated by the thing he hates, Windom's escape and his life as a nonperson lead inevitably to the Department of Predictions that rules his world. Violent and pumped up with the adrenalin of fear, the novel all too often seems a glib if flashy reworking of familiar dystopian themes. (October 6)